


And Your Light Sets Me Free

by TheRangress



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, Fluff, M/M, post-WoR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 04:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5954266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While hiding from a party with Renarin, Kaladin decides it's finally time for him to admit something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Your Light Sets Me Free

The battlefield wasn’t half so bad as a party. That was just a battlefield of a different sort, of words and insults and the dance of politics. Kaladin had no patience for it. These lighteyes, so cowardly, scrabbling for scraps of power and making their petty attacks instead of banding together to fight their real enemy.

Thankfully, Renarin had made avoiding parties into an art.

Kaladin stood beside Renarin at the wall, both holding glasses of wine still almost full. Renarin’s hand tapped at his side. Kaladin took a deep breath and bristled, shoulders tense.

“Almost,” Renarin whispered. “A few more pleasantries and we should be able to vanish for an hour or two.”

Kaladin nodded. _Pleasantries_ , they were called, false sweetness over the scorn. He hated almost everyone in this room, and they hated him too. Still they had to resort to pleasantries.

The pair had attended many parties, working to make Alethkar listen. Knights Radiant, paraded around as a show of arms. Their presence was as much a show as the rich clothing on the lords and ladies. A darkeyes, who wore his slave brands with pride. And Renarin.

Renarin, a Highprince’s son, ought to have belonged. In no way did he. These people left him stiff and tense, and they spoke to him with either scorn or undisguised pity. Kaladin had seen him by the fire with Bridge Four, laughing and at ease, and once he’d asked why the court scorned him.

“We don’t advertise my epilepsy,” Renarin had said, brushing his fingers along the rough edge of his stew bowl. “There are only two reasons they could think of I wouldn’t fight. Either I was a coward, or I was simply too… slow.”

“Slow?”

He’d laughed. “Captain, all of court knows me for a halfwit. I came here because you’re the only people who wouldn’t know to condescend.”

“You’re…”

A pause.

“Do you think less of me?”

He’d tugged at his cuffs, watching the ground.

Kaladin had promised he didn’t. Renarin had smiled, and left it at that.

No wonder Renarin had been afraid. They talked to him as if he was an axehound sometimes. Kaladin sipped his drink and watched the young woman exchanging her pleasantries with Renarin. She didn’t even speak to Kaladin. He was beneath notice. But she spoke to Renarin loudly and slowly, with small words and a false smile.

“I hope you enjoy the party, Brightness,” Renarin said with a tight little smile.

“I hope you enjoy yourself too, Brightlord… Captain.”

She merged back into the crowd, and Renarin took a deep drink of his wine. “We can go now,” he said, taking Kaladin by the arm. “We should miss the worst of the noise, as well.”

“Thank the Almighty for you, Renarin.”

He got a smile flashed his way before they ducked for the door.

Renarin’s hand stayed on Kaladin’s arm as they walked down the hallway, relaxing slowly as they got further away. Renarin was _always_ so tense. It made Kaladin aware of the way he measured his own words and stance too.

Renarin made him aware of a great deal.

They knew the path well. After all the parties they’d escaped from, it had become as well-known as a child’s rhyme.

“That strategy you proposed today,” Kaladin said as they turned a corner. “It was brilliant.”

“Yes. You said so at the time. More than once, at that.”

“Well, it’s worth repeating. The way you accounted for the trade routes was inspired. That trick you’ve been practicing with Shallan, too. It’s all astonishingly clever.”

“It’s just a matter of being thorough. I think of problems that might arise,” Renarin said, pulling away, “and then I come up with solutions.”

“It’s something I could never do,” Kaladin said. He put a hand on Renarin’s shoulder. “Don’t sell yourself short. Your thinking is absolutely invaluable. I couldn’t even begin to count the times you’ve saved my life with it…”

“I couldn’t possibly have saved your life that often in under a year.” Renarin moved forward, holding the door open and beginning his way up the narrow stone staircase. “Nowhere near as often as you’ve saved mine, anyway. My alleged brilliance doesn’t affect the fact that I spoke out of turn before the Highprinces. We’re in enough trouble without furthering the idea that the Knights Radiant are led by…”

“A darkeyed slave with ideas above his station, the most outspoken heretic since the Theocracy, a man obsessed with outdated morality… Shallan…”

“A halfwit and a coward who _associates_ with darkeyed slaves,” Renarin concluded. “We are hardly respectable to begin with. I was speaking of the idea we’re… impossible to control.”

“We _are_ impossible to control.”

“Have no respect for authority.”

“On the whole, we don’t.”

“Well,” Renarin admitted, “they don’t need to know that.”

The stairs were narrow and twisted round. It was dark— no one really came there— but practice and slow steps kept them from stumbling.

“If you hadn’t spoken,” Kaladin said, “the strategy would have been unheard. People could have died, Renarin. I think that’s far more important than our image.”

“If the Knights Radiant aren’t trusted, people will die anyway.” Renarin sighed, and held the door open to let Kaladin go first. “But thank you, Kaladin. For your faith.”

He stepped out into the cleaner blackness of night, taking a deep breath of the cool breeze. The stars were brighter in Urithiru, it seemed. They shone in strange new constellations, scattered around the full moons.

Renarin stepped forward, shutting the door with a delicate touch, and leaned out into the night. The wind tousled his hair, fluttering strands flipping from gold to black.

Kaladin smiled, leaning back against the doorway and watching him. It hadn’t been very long they’d been doing this, but it had been far too many parties. Renarin had come to Kaladin, one morning after the long meetings they were forced to sit in on. He hadn’t been quiet with his distaste for all the show. And so Renarin had offered to share his escape.

The amount of calculating and planning that went into avoiding a party still astounded Kaladin. Renarin was as practiced at escaping the parties as the other lighteyes were in navigating it. No one ever noticed they’d been gone, even finding themselves sure they’d seen the pair for events they’d entirely missed.

Renarin, Kaladin reflected, truly was a wonder.

“Does the noise bother you?” he asked, still looking off into the night. “Of the parties.”

“The noise?” Kaladin stepped over to Renarin’s side. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“It hurts me.” He leaned his arms over the wall. “It’s like being battered with swords. Too many to count, too many to do anything but curl up and hope your armor defends you until they go away.”

Renarin turned to look, and Kaladin felt himself judged. What did Renarin expect him to say?

“But that,” he said, “isn’t what you do. You learned how to _escape_.”

Renarin pulled back in. “I’d hoped— ” He looked down. “I’d hoped perhaps you felt it too. That I wasn’t alone.”

Kaladin wrapped his arm around Renarin’s shoulder, and barely hesitated. “My brother. He hated noise, always running and covering his ears. He fidgeted with everything, the way you do.”

Renarin wasn’t Tien. At first, when Kaladin had been seeing past his eyes and his name, that was all he had seen. But the resemblances had faded, now just a quiet hint of each other. Tien had been assured in himself and confident where Renarin was lost and afraid. Renarin was a passionate fighter where Tien had been shy and gentle.

It took a while for Renarin’s smile to appear. A soft light as he leaned into Kaladin’s arm. “Oh.”

 _Tell him._ Kaladin knew it, the way he knew the wind. This was a part of him now.

Right now, standing under the stars with Renarin at his side, he didn’t fear it. It all felt so right.

“Renarin,” Kaladin said, turning and resting both hands on his shoulders. “There’s something I should tell you tonight. It’s been building for a long time, and… you need to know, now.”

He felt Renarin’s muscles tense.

“Tell me, then.”

Where would he start? Kaladin knew he’d have to ease into this. “When I first met you,” he said, “I thought you were like all the others. Arrogant and thoughtless, self-absorbed. Petty. Then you came to Bridge Four, and you trusted me. You let me see you.”

He moved to touch Renarin on the cheek. Kaladin looked away and tried to think of words for what he knew. “You’re nothing like them. Storms, Renarin, you’re nothing like anyone I’ve ever known. I don’t even know where to begin on how much you impress me.”

Renarin looked up, studying Kaladin’s face.

“You’re strong,” Kaladin said. “I know you don’t think you can be, but enduring is the strongest thing anyone can do, and you’ve endured.”

“I haven’t endured—”

“You have. That room, back there. You’ve been trapped in rooms like that all your life. I’d have broken like a cornered whitespine, snapping at them and biting, and those people would have had my head for it. You were strong enough to endure that, and clever enough to find a way to escape. More than that, Renarin, you’ve been strong enough to walk into them again and again.”

“I never had a _choice_.”

“You could have broken.”

“I believe the Nahel bond is proof I _did_.”

Kaladin paused. He reached out for Renarin’s hair, gently running his fingers through it. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, and you kept going.”

“Because I had to.” Renarin pulled away, leaning on the tower wall again. “My family— ”

“People don’t stop being damaged because it’s inconvenient, Renarin.” He tried to keep his words from being harsh. “You could’ve given up at any time. Stopped caring, decided the pain was too much. But you didn’t.”

“I don’t see,” Renarin said, head held high, “why you’d be talking about _my_ pain. It’s really very little. I’m too sensitive. That’s all.”

“Better to be sensitive than stop caring. You haven’t had things as easy as people think, I know that. I know what hating yourself looks like, what it feels like. You’re _strong_ , Renarin. No matter what you think.”

“That’s nothing,” Renarin crossed away before Kaladin could touch his shoulder. “compared to your strength.”

With a loud sigh, Kaladin followed him. He’d been expecting to make a speech, awkwardly, to stumble his way through it and finally reach his point. He _should_ have expected this argument. “You aren’t proud,” he said. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you aren’t proud. You’ll listen to anyone given a reason, obey without grumbling no matter how little or demeaning the work.”

“I’ll listen to anyone that knows what they’re talking about, yes. That’s just being reasonable.” He leaned heavily on the wall, watching Kaladin out the corner of his eye. “Do you think I’m worthy of so much praise for not being like the others, Kaladin?”

“No! Yes. No.” Kaladin cursed himself and touched Renarin on the shoulder again. “You’re worthy of praise,” he said, “because of who you _are_. Even more so because you were brought up like them, learned how to behave from them. Let me finish, Renarin. I promise I have a point.”

Renarin pulled back, then nodded. Kaladin’s hand was left on his shoulder.

“The point,” Kaladin said, stepping closer and hushing his words, “is that all of that— and more, so much more— I don’t expect anything from you. I’m not asking anything. I just think that you ought to know that you’re worth so much more than you think.”

Kaladin paused, gathering his words. They were so simple. How could it be so hard to say?”

“Thank you,” Renarin said, slipping his hand into Kaladin’s. “I could say the same, Kaladin. You don’t appreciate yourself properly.”

“I love you.” Kaladin stepped back, abandoning his touch on Renarin. “Renarin, I’m completely in love with you. You soar so much higher, in many ways, than I could ever reach. You’re the sun after a highstorm, the light that gives me strength. And storms, Renarin, I love you.”

“Kaladin— ” Renarin stepped closer.

“I’m not asking anything of you. You don’t need to feel the same way. It’s enough for me that you’re here, Renarin, and you’re healing and learning your way. You deserve love. And I just want you to know you have it.”

“Kaladin.”

“You have mine.” Kaladin smiled. “You have my heart. Thank you. Really, Renarin. Thank you for— ”

Something pressed itself to his mouth.

Renarin’s lips. Renarin, with a tight grip on his shoulders, and kissing him hard.

Kaladin pressed back just as he pulled away.

“Kaladin,” Renarin said, “I love you.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.” He cracked a grin. “I love you.”

Kaladin breathed deeply. “I love you too.”

“You said.”

He smiled, pressed his hand to the nape of Renarin’s neck, and kissed him again, slowly and gently. “How much longer before we should go back?”

“A while,” Renarin said, wrapping his arms around Kaladin’s neck. “So, you… you really…”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He smiled. Storms, Kaladin loved him.

Above, the stars were bright. A gentle breeze wrapped round the tower. Soon the night would fade to dawn, but for a moment there was nothing but the two of them atop their tower in the starlight.

There was peace.


End file.
